Avery Weigh-Tronix celebrates 200 years of innovation
Avery Weigh-Tronix, one of the world’s leading industrial weighing manufacturers, has celebrated 200 years of innovation with a ‘Best of British’ themed birthday party for employees. The party was held at the historic 25-acre Soho Foundry headquarters in Smethwick, Birmingham which the company have occupied since 1895.
During the celebrations, in a nod to the company’s Victorian heritage, employees were treated to vintage fairground games, traditional fish and chips and afternoon teas and historical talks which looked back on the key milestones and innovations over Avery’s 200-year history.
The roots of Avery Weigh-Tronix extend back to 1731 when James Ford established a business as a maker of stilliards (portable scales) in Digbeth, near central Birmingham, UK. As the Industrial Revolution gathered momentum, in 1818 the business was transferred to William Avery, soon joined by his brother Thomas, who traded under the name W&T Avery.
Over the course of the next 200 years Avery Weigh-Tronix defined the weighing industry, from designing and manufacturing the world’s first weighbridge in 1876, to inventing the first electronic scale in 1971. Today, innovation continues at the heart of the company’s strategy, with recent innovations including restructuring the way customer service is delivered to guarantee product uptime to customers.
The company has had a huge impact in the West Midlands region, with 3rd generation family members and employees with excess of 40 years’ service still employed by Avery today.
Avery Weigh-Tronix created another company milestone during the celebrations, when the company broke the Guinness World Record for the most people on a scale. To break the record, 207 Avery employees squeezed onto a 12m long weighbridge which had been manufactured on the Soho Foundry site.
Lance Read, Vice President General Manager of Avery Weigh-Tronix thanked the employees, who are an essential element of the company’s success; “I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our employees for their hard work and dedication. The world over the past 200 years has seen a great deal of change, and the success of Avery Weigh-Tronix is a direct result of our ability to continually evolve to meet our customers’ changing demands. Over the next 200 years and beyond, we will continue to build on our success by working as a team and placing the customer at the heart of everything we do.”